3rd Annual SEM Scholarship Contest Winner is…..
Friday, July 11th, 2008;
-- Andy Beal |
OK, you’ve waited long enough. It’s time to reveal the winner of this year’s Annual Search Engine Marketing Scholarship contest. I could fluff this intro out, but I know you’ll skip down to the winning entry anyway, so here it is:
Winner: 8 Stupid Things Webmasters Do To Mess Up Their Analytics - Linda Bustos
Congratulations to Linda Bustos who won the majority of votes from our expert judges. Linda’s entry was a great template for any “how to” article.
- Enticing title.
- Engaging questions at the beginning of the post.
- Short, easily digestible, paragraphs with easy-to-read bullet points.
- Lots of graphics to break-up the text and actually demonstrate her tips.
- Lots of useful links.
Linda walks away with our mega-scholarship prize package and the honor of beating out some strong competition. Special recognition to our other four finalists:
- A Bulletproof SEO Strategy for Real Estate Professionals
- 13 Prophecies of Internet Marketing
- The Process of Producing Web Traffic that Gets Results, Think Like Someone Else
- New Technique for Optimizing Flash Sites for Search and Usability
Many thanks to all who entered the contest, read the entries, helped spread the word, and to our panel of esteemed judges.
I know all of our entrants are just dying to know how they faired, so I’ve shared the Google Analytics numbers of each entry below.
Until next year!
Can’t see the table? Click here.
Similar posts you may like...
Save & Share: 
Category: Contest, Pilgrim News
Forward: Email This Post
July 11th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Its very nice to see these great results. And Congratulations to the winner.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Great article Linda and congratulations on your win.
I will leave some feedback though. I don’t think your direct link swapping on your blog was in the spirit of the competition, and certainly I thought would have violated the competition rule advice of “what would Apple do”.
http://www.getelastic.com/special-link-love-i-want-to-link-to-you-too/
Still your article stood up for itself and did not need that kind of support.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
@Allison - I don’t see any problem with it.
@everyone - Let’s not turn this comment thread into anything that looks like sour grapes. Any concerns can be directed to me at andy.beal AT gmail.com. Congratulations to our winner and finalists can be left in the comments.
Thanks!
July 11th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Congratulations Linda! I loved your article!
Joe Hall’s last blog post..Top 5 National Real Estate Franchise Web Sites
July 11th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
[...] day for Get Elastic today, Marketing Pilgrim announced that 8 Stupid Things Webmasters Do to Mess Up Their Analytics captured first prize in the 3rd [...]
July 11th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Andy I don’t want it to seem like sour grapes! Like I said I think the article was great and stood up for itself. No need for lesser marketing methods to have pumped it
July 11th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
@Allison - thanks.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Great articles. I could not have picked a better winner though. Congrats!
Mr Marketing’s last blog post..Negative PR is still PR.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Congrats to Linda, your post was great. Furthermore, your post received more votes from the esteemed judges than the other posts combined. Your position of being the winner cannot be disputed.
Also, I don’t really have a problem with the link swapping on her site. (Part of me wished I had done it first). haha.
But perhaps link swapping rules should be clearly specified for future competitions.
Congrats again, to Linda, and to everyone who entered the competition. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to compete, while I am competitive to the core and don’t really believe in moral victories, I really feel like this competition was a win/win for everyone involved.
Thanks again to everyone for putting this on!
Cheers.
Mike Morabito’s last blog post..What is a Google Advertising Professional?
July 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Congrats Linda, awesome post. And congrats to all the participants, judges and Andy Beal of course. As a previous participant, I think everyone wins in this scholarship contest.
David Temple’s last blog post..Andy Beal offers an online reputation management workshop
July 11th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Congrats to Linda, that article was a nice blend of a “How To” and a “You Shoulda”.
Congrats as well to the other finalists, I’m off to read your various articles and lament the fact that I didn’t promote my article at all after the first week (and kick myself a bit for that too I s’pose).
Well done all.
July 12th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Thanks everyone and no worries, Allison. It was just a misunderstanding. It wasn’t a reciprocal linking gimmick. I did encourage our readers to link to the post when I first announced it on Get Elastic (and also to read, sphinn, stumble, del.icio.us etc). I started seeing a few trackbacks in the comments on Marketing Pilgrim and decided to throw link love back in a roundup post on Get Elastic. It was cool, I ended up “meeting” new blogger friends by following the trackbacks - “reputation management” meets “blogger outreach.”
I did throw out another call for our readers who blog to link my entry from the roundup. To offer a link back would be the least I could do since I returned the favor for the first batch. I think of our blog community as an invisible network of like-minded people. Finding their trackbacks at least lets me put names and blogs to otherwise mysterious Feedburner stats.
Hey if you can’t leverage your Facebook and Twitter friends and blog readers, who can you?
I really liked your post too, Allison and I actually recommended it to one of our readers in the comments of Get Elastic who was asking a question about Flickr marketing. I was glad to have a good reference to point her to!
Linda Bustos’s last blog post..Win 1 of 5 Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day!
July 12th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Oops my bad, I got the Flickr groups post mixed up. Soooorry Julie *blush*
Proves I shouldn’t be reading blogs at 12:30 Saturday morning!
Linda Bustos’s last blog post..Win 1 of 5 Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day!
July 12th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Congrats to linda and the others who participated
July 12th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Congratulations on a great entry and for being a deserving winner, looking forward to another submission next year.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Mazeltov to Linda for winning this prestigious award
July 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Congrats Linda! Analytics sure does highlight performance, doesn’t it!
July 12th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Some really great content was created. I enjoyed this whole contest. Congrats to Linda!
Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..Interview with SEO: Brian Carter and Search Engine Journal Post
July 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Congratulations to all contestants and especially to Linda, who have made a great job and wrote a really good article. Thanks.
Pawel Szulencki’s last blog post..Google Keyword Tool search volume data
July 12th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Congrats Linda. Hope to see some gr8 content from you in future as well.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
My congratulations to Linda! You really deserved the victory
July 12th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Congrats Linda.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
[...] Pilgrim announced the winner of the 3rd SEM Scholarship contest and the winner is Linda Bustos from Get Elastic - The Ecommerce Blog, with her incredibly [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Congratulations Linda! Superb job!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Congratulation Linda for the good article.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Congrats Linda.
Melissa - SEOAware.com’s last blog post..What is SEO Consulting? Well, It Depends on the Vision of the Consultant
July 15th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Congrats, Linda! It was a terrific piece
randfish’s last blog post..Where’s the structure to the domain market? Domain name funds, mortgages and leases
July 17th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Let’s raise a toast to her win.
Travel Point’s last blog post..The Samba of Brazil
August 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Congratulations to Linda! Here’s the press release (http://bit.ly/W7vFW) part of her SEM Scholarship winnings donated by TopRank.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Congratulations!
Destiny@Freebeezndealz.com’s last blog post..Free 4 pack of Goody hair elastics
October 6th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Congratulations to y’all contestants and especially to Linda, who have made a great job and wrote a really good article. Thanks.